Developing the salt industry to ensure livelihoods and increase income for salt farmers

Within the framework of the Vietnam Salt Festival - Bac Lieu 2025, on the afternoon of March 7, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MARD) coordinated with the People's Committee of Bac Lieu province to organize a conference to review the implementation of Decree No. 40/2017/ND-CP of the Government on management of salt production and trading. Vietcombank's extraordinary general meeting of shareholders elected Mr. Le Quang Vinh - Deputy General Director in charge of the Executive Board as a member of the Board of Directors for the 2023 - 2028 term, and dismissed Mr. Nguyen My Hao, who retired from the regime from November 1, 2024. With the above decisions, Vietcombank's Board of Directors currently still has 9 members. On the afternoon of March 7, in Hanoi, General Secretary To Lam and the Central Working Group worked with the Central Policy and Strategy Committee on private economic development. Although there have been many changes compared to the past, the stilt houses of the Thai people in Muong Dan still retain their characteristic beauty. People's lives are still peaceful along the Nam Viec River, at the foot of the cool 7-storey waterfall in the middle of Nghe An's great forest. On March 7, 2025, Binh Duong province opened the Biwase Tour Of Vietnam. This is the first women's cycling tournament in Vietnam within the framework of the 15th annual Binh Duong International Women's Cycling Tournament, competing for the Biwase Cup, and entering the international tournament system. "Every inch of land is gold", yet two poor Van Kieu households, Mr. Ho Van Lat and Mr. Ho Van Chun in Huong Hoa district (Quang Tri) donated nearly 1,000 square meters of land to expand the school. The noble gesture of the two households is contributing to spreading a decent lifestyle to the local community... Vietcombank's extraordinary general meeting of shareholders elected Mr. Le Quang Vinh - Deputy General Director in charge of the Executive Board as a member of the Board of Directors for the 2023 - 2028 term, and dismissed Mr. Nguyen My Hao, who retired from the regime from November 1, 2024. With the above decisions, Vietcombank's Board of Directors still has 9 members. Within the framework of the Vietnam Salt Festival - Bac Lieu in 2025, on the afternoon of March 7, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MARD) coordinated with the People's Committee of Bac Lieu province to organize a conference to review the implementation of Decree No. 40/2017/ND-CP of the Government on the management of salt production and trading. General news of the Ethnic and Development Newspaper. This afternoon's news on March 7, there is the following notable information: 100-year journey of the Salt Industry - Human Life. Go to Si Ma Cai to see white pear flowers. The beauty of the ancient Thai village in the middle of the Nghe An mountains. Along with other news in the ethnic minority and mountainous areas. On the afternoon of March 7, in Hanoi, the Customs Department held a Conference to announce the Decision regulating the functions, tasks, powers, and organizational structure of the Customs Department and its internal organizations; Announcing the Decisions on the personnel work of the Customs Department. Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Duc Chi attended and gave a speech at the Conference. General news of the Ethnic and Development Newspaper. This afternoon's news on March 7 has the following notable information: 100-year journey of the Salt Industry - Human Life. Going to Si Ma Cai to see white pear flowers. The beauty of the ancient Thai village in the middle of the Nghe An mountains. Along with other news in ethnic minority and mountainous areas. On the afternoon of March 7, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired a national online conference to disseminate and implement laws and resolutions recently passed at the 9th Extraordinary Session of the 15th National Assembly. On March 6, at Hung Vuong Square, Bac Lieu City, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment coordinated with the People's Committee of Bac Lieu Province to organize the opening ceremony of the Vietnam - Bac Lieu Salt Festival 2025, with the theme "100-year journey of salt making - People's life". This is an event to preserve, honor and enhance the value of Vietnam's salt making profession. The Q-FAIR 2025 International Fair took place from March 6 to 9 in Quy Nhon City (Binh Dinh), gathering more than 1,000 booths of more than 100 enterprises producing goods related to exterior products and serving modern lifestyles.

Chairman of Bac Lieu Provincial People's Committee Pham Van Thieu (right) and Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Vo Van Hung chaired the conference.

According to the report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, after the Government issued Decree No. 40/2017/ND-CP on management of salt production and trading, the Ministry has proactively coordinated with ministries, branches and localities to implement many solutions to effectively perform the state management function on salt production, processing and trading; develop and promulgate mechanisms, policies, regulations on expenditure levels and arrange capital from the annual local budget to support investment in salt production development.

The average salt output in the period 2017 - 2024 will reach an average of nearly 1 million tons/year. The average salt production workforce in the period 2017 - 2020 is 41,247 people, by 2024 it will decrease to about 19,000 people. The average income of salt workers is 40 million VND/person/year, equal to 70% of the average income per capita of the whole country.

Regarding production methods, the country currently has 19 provinces and cities, including 40 districts and 116 communes with salt production (North: 5 provinces, Central: 7 provinces, South: 7 provinces), with 73 salt processing facilities of all economic sectors participating in the production of refined salt, iodized salt, clean salt for export... Of which, 13 salt processing facilities have invested in applying scientific and technological advances, with a capacity of 15,000 - 22,000 tons/year and 1 facility has invested in 2 synchronous equipment lines imported from Spain, with a capacity of 200,000 tons/year.

Salt products are diverse, especially those used in food and drink. Salt products from some localities have been exported to Europe, America, Japan, Korea, etc. and have established distribution channels in major supermarkets such as BigC, Coopmart, Vinmart, and Bach Hoa Xanh retail system.

Mr. Pham Van Thieu, Chairman of Bac Lieu Provincial People's Committee spoke at the conference.

In Bac Lieu, with a production area of ​​nearly 1,600 hectares, the output is nearly 80,000 tons/year. Among the 160 OCOP products of the province, there are many products directly related to salt, especially 2 Bac Lieu Salt products that meet the 5-star OCOP standard.

However, the salt industry has been facing many challenges, such as climate change affecting productivity and salt quality, and market competition factors making salt prices very unstable and often low...

Chairman of Bac Lieu Provincial People's Committee Pham Van Thieu said that the difficulties of the salt industry require attention and investment from all levels and sectors to support the salt industry towards diversifying products, not only for eating salt, but also for beauty, medicinal salt, salt for industrial production, etc.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Vo Van Hung speaks at the conference

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Vo Van Hung said that climate change and extreme weather occurring earlier and more severely have strongly affected salt production, including industrial salt and salt farmers' salt, due to the low rate of mechanization in the fields and lack of storage facilities.

“Salt is a labor-intensive industry but the income is low. Therefore, there is competition for labor between the salt industry and other industries. Due to low income from salt production, some salt farmers have abandoned their fields to look for other jobs with higher income,” said Mr. Vo Van Hung.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Vo Van Hung affirmed that in the coming time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment will focus on improving output, quality, diversifying products, promoting production, processing and consumption of domestic salt; at the same time, investing in developing salt production in places with favorable natural conditions in a concentrated, large-scale direction, forming industrial salt production areas with modern technology, linking production with processing, recovering post-salt products and other economic sectors such as rural tourism and health care and beauty services...

Salt workers' income is only 70% of the average.

Develop the salt industry in a synchronous manner in the following areas: Production, processing, preservation and consumption of salt, linking the restructuring of salt production with technological innovation, investing in upgrading salt field infrastructure to improve productivity, quality and efficiency per unit area. The most important thing is to ensure livelihoods, increase income for salt farmers, and move towards getting rich from the salt industry.

At the Conference, delegates also focused on discussing and contributing ideas to find new directions to increase the value of salt grains, contributing to increasing income for salt farmers in Bac Lieu in particular and the whole country in general.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha: Localities need to pay attention to investing in upgrading salt production infrastructure.

Source: https://baodantoc.vn/phat-trien-nghe-muoi-de-bao-dam-sinh-ke-nang-cao-thu-nhap-cho-diem-dan-1741354834841.htm